Strangest Places
by Vashti
Summary: In his experience, people who looked like him who weren't surrounded by a cloud of other people who looked like him were hiding a heavily armed team.


**Title** : Strangest Places  
 **Author** : Vashti  
 **Fandom** : Avengers, The Hulk  
 **Character(s)** : Bruce Banner, Oz, Bayarmaa  
 **Rating** : PG  
 **Summary** : In his experience, people who looked like him who weren't surrounded by a cloud of other people who looked like him were hiding a heavily armed team.  
 **Length** : ~850 words  
 **Disclaimer** : Only the words are mine, and that's probably up for philosophical debate.  
 **Notes** : I don't think I've ever crossed the Avengers before. It was interesting. Written for the 2016 Twisted Shorts Ficathon.

* * *

The small, compact man several stalls down at the open-air market had Bruce spooked immediately. Tibet had its fair share of American and European tourists, but they didn't usually venture this far off the beaten path without a film crew or an expedition team. The redhead was conspicuously alone. In Bruce's experience, people who looked like him who weren't surrounded by a cloud of other people who looked like him were hiding a heavily armed team, fitted out with armor and tac vests.

Bruce was torn. As far as he could tell, he hadn't been spotted yet. He could either leave the marketplace (and the village) right now, or drift in the man's wake trying to figure out who he was and who had sent him.

Bruce's first instinct was to run. Tibet was large enough and sparse enough that there'd be no guessing, for him or anyone else, where he would end up. But as he turned the thought over in his mind, he found that being found galled him. Like a mosquito bite in an awkward place on his arm, it annoyed him enough to want to pick at it even though he knew he shouldn't.

He had worked hard to disappear, he reasoned with himself as quietly trailed after the slight man. It was important to his, and everyone else's, continued safety to find out where he'd failed.

Unlike most tourists, the man didn't linger over tables of exquisite but overpriced jewelry or the hand-carved knick-knacks, nor did he gravitate to easy ethnic-wear in the form of scarves and rugs. Bruce noted that he was, in fact, wearing a comfortably eclectic mix of Tibetan and Western clothing, much like the merchants around them. Western styles were more prevalent in the major cities, but they were far off the beaten path. It was different here.

That brought Bruce up short, at least in his head. Was it possible that this man had assimilated into the local culture? That he was now a local himself? Did that make Bruce the crazy interloping stalker?

One eye on his growing enigma, Bruce stopped at one of the stalls where the man had paused for several moments: a Tibetan herbalist. "Excuse me, ma'am, do you know the man who was here?" he asked in a cobbling together of Chinese, Tibetan and English that usually worked for him. "Pale skin? Red hair?"

The hair seemed to do it. Soon Bruce had a vague outline of the mystery man and how frequently he visited the marketplace. He promised to come back, and with every intention of doing so. Bruce wasn't that kind of doctor, but he often found himself doing that kind of doctoring in his travels.

Bruce stepped away from the stall, unsure what to do now.

A strong hand grabbed his arm and pulled him through the crowd into a shaded side-street.

"Who are you and what is your interest in my husband?"

The surprisingly strong hand belonged to a Tibetan woman. Bruce might have gaped at her if he wasn't busy making sure he wasn't about to have a little green problem on his hands.

"I don't have all day," she said.

"Give me a minute," he snapped.

Something flashed in her eyes, but she did back off. Bruce took several slow breaths as she watched him carefully.

"Who are you?" she said again once Bruce seemed calm. "And what is your interest in my husband?"

"I don't have any interest in your husband. I thought he might be following me."

The woman eyed him critically. "Are you in the habit of being followed?"

"Sometimes."

Her eyes narrowed.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I…" Bruce wondered why he was being so forthcoming. "Look, it's not important. I just realized that your husband lives here and seeing him is just a coincidence. I was going to leave him alone, so why don't you leave me alone."

The woman's eyes narrowed again. "How can I trust you?"

Bruce raised his hands. "Or I could leave? But I did want to go back to the medicine shop."

"Fine. Buy your herbs and then leave here."

"Fine." The air of danger the Other Guy sensed in her made it easy for Bruce to agree.

Satisfied, the woman turned away and melted back into the milling crowd.

Bruce took the time to check with himself again. Other than mild interest, the Other Guy seemed content to stay where he was. Sighing with relief, and kicking himself for his paranoia, Bruce rejoined the market crowd for himself. As promised, he went back to the herbalist's stall to purchase some of the items he was already familiar with. He would have liked to talk to the woman about the items he was unfamiliar with at her stall, but he didn't want to press his luck.

Purchases made, he couldn't help another visual sweep of the marketplace. Closer than he would have expected, he spotted the man and woman talking with obvious intensity. There was a child in the man's arms reaching for the woman…his mother, Bruce assumed.

He turned and walked the other way.

[in]Fin[ite]


End file.
